TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A commercial plane arriving from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates bound for Israel was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, briefly raising concerns about a possible hijacking and prompting Israel will send fighter planes.
Israeli media, citing security officials, said the incident resulted from a quarrel between the plane’s two pilots and that everyone on board was safe. The plane landed in Tabuk, a civil and military base in the kingdom.
The FlyDubai plane had transmitted an emergency alert, according to publicly available flight tracking information.
About two and a half hours after leaving Dubai, it descended sharply from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in a minute, before making an irregular circle near the Jordanian border and finally landing in Tabuk about an hour later, according to FlightRadar24.
A regional official briefed on the incident said a fight broke out in the cockpit and apparently involved pilots. The cause of the fight was not immediately clear, the official said.
“The crew was questioned as part of the investigation,” added the regional official, without specifying whether anyone had been arrested.
An Israeli official said Israel believed the incident could be an attempt to attack Israelis, but that the investigation was still ongoing.
A third official confirmed that Israel had dispatched warplanes, fearing the hijacking of a plane carrying dozens of its citizens. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned in recent days of growing, unspecified security threats.
The three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was still under investigation.
Netanyahu’s office said the situation was under control and Israel was working to repatriate the passengers.
Emergency landings for personnel reasons are rare but not unknown. In 2022, two Air France pilots were suspended after fighting in the cockpit of a Geneva-Paris flight, without it having to be diverted and landed as planned.
Passengers told Israeli Ch 12 by phone that they heard screams from those seated further forward in the plane who heard the altercation between the pilots, and that the plane plunged sharply before landing in Saudi Arabia.
They also said that all passengers remained on the plane and that a heavy presence of Saudi security forces surrounded them.
FlyDubai later confirmed that flight FZ 1073 en route to Ben Gurion experienced an incident and landed safely in Tabuk on Wednesday.
“Our teams are working closely with the relevant authorities,” the carrier said. “Further updates will be released as additional confirmed details become available.”
Flight tracking data indicated it was a Boeing 737 Max 8.
FlyDubai is the lower-cost sister airline of Emirates Airlines. The United Arab Emirates has become a popular vacation destination for Israeli tourists since the two countries normalized relations in 2020.
The budget carrier’s fleet relies entirely on variants of the 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle aircraft widely used by airlines around the world. It has nearly 100 aircraft, including 69 of the Max 8 variant.
Dubai International Airport, where the plane took off from, is by far the busiest airport in the Middle East and the largest in the world in terms of international travel. It welcomed a record 95.2 million passengers last year.
Israelis were targeted in a series of hijackings and plane attacks by Palestinian militants in the 1960s and 1970s. Israel has not experienced a hijacking in decades, but maintains some of the strictest airport security in the world, including often invasive check-in procedures for flights to Israel.
Commercial flights have been operating between Israel and the United Arab Emirates since the two countries normalized relations in 2020.
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Metz from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Adam Schreck in Bangkok contributed to this report.
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